Read Ebook: Our Next-Door Neighbors by Maniates Belle Kanaris Sarg Tony Illustrator

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Ebook has 883 lines and 25008 words, and 18 pages

," he denied. "That wasn't the reason, but--I like her type, though I always supposed I wouldn't. It is a new one to me--anyway. I didn't think so young a girl as she--"

Our discussion was cut short by the inevitable, ever-present Ptolemy, who came running up to us, clad in about four inches of swimming trunks.

"Why aren't you in bed?" I demanded.

"I was in bed, but it was so warm I couldn't sleep, and I went to the window and saw you coming down here, so I thought I'd come, too."

I repeated Rob's remarks to Silvia when I returned to our room, and she betrayed Beth's confidences in regard to Rob.

"She says she would like him if it were not for one trait that she dislikes more than any other in a man and that it was sufficient in her estimation to counterbalance all his good qualities."

"What can she mean?" I asked bewildered. "I don't see a flaw in Rob, except for his being a woman-hater, and he surely hasn't betrayed that fact to her, judging from his manner toward her. I think he is making an effort to be nice to her on my account, and she doesn't appreciate it."

"I asked her what the flaw was, and she flushed and said she couldn't tell me."

"Well, I guess all around it is a good thing we are going off on our fishing expedition. I don't want my friend turned down by my sister, and I don't want my friend calling my sister a new type and unfeminine."

When Rob and I, with our camping outfit, drove off through the woods, Ptolemy's eyes followed us so enviously and he pleaded so eloquently to be taken with us that Rob was actually on the point of considering it.

"See here, Rob Rossiter!" I exclaimed, "This is my vacation and all I came to this God-forsaken place for was to escape the Polydores. If he goes, I stay. You know I've always tried to meet issues, but this antique family has got me going."

"All right," he yielded.

After a drive of a few miles we came to the lake and pitched our tent. Two days of ideal camp life followed. The weather was fine, Rob was a first-class cook, and the sport was beyond our most optimistic expectation. We landed enough of the Friday food to satisfy the most fastidious fishing fiend, and the mosquitoes, finding we were impervious to their stings, finally let us alone.

I forgot all business cares and disappointments, yes, even the Polydores; but on the morning of the third day Rob began to show signs of restlessness and spoke of the likelihood of my wife's being lonely.

"Not with Beth and Ptolemy in calling distance," I told him.

"Well, that shows how little you know her. She and Silvia are great friends."

"Oh, yes, of course they are friendly, but I mean their tastes are so different, and they are so unlike. Your sister doesn't care for domesticity."

"Sure she does. You have turned the wrong searchlight on Beth. If you knew her, you'd like her."

"I do like her," he declared. "It's too bad she--"

He stopped abruptly and quickly changed the conversation. In spite of my efforts to renew the controversy about Beth, he refused to return to the subject.

In the afternoon, when I was doing a little scale work preparatory to cooking, a messenger from the hotel drove up with a note from Silvia which I read aloud:

"Ptolemy has been missing for twenty-four hours. We are in hopes he has joined you. If not, what shall I do?"

"We'll go back with you," said Rob to the man. "Just lend a hand here and help us pull up these tent stakes."

"What's Ptolemy to me or I to him?" I asked with a groan, "can't we give him absent treatment?"

"You're positively inhuman, Lucien," protested Rob. "The boy may be at the bottom of the lake."

"Not he! He was born to be hung."

All this time, however, I had been active in making preparations for departure, as I knew that Silvia would feel that we were responsible for Ptolemy's safety, and her anxiety was reason enough for me to hasten to her.

Rob was quite jubilant on our return trip and declared that the fish came too easily and too plentifully to make it real sport, but I felt that I had another grudge to be charged up to the fateful family.

We found Silvia pale from anxiety, Beth in tears, and Diogenes loudly clamoring for "Tolly." We learned that the afternoon before, Silvia and Beth had gone with the landlady for a ride, leaving Diogenes in Ptolemy's care, but on their return at dinner time, Diogenes was playing alone in the sandpile.

Nothing was thought of Ptolemy's absence until bedtime, and they had then sent out searching parties to the woods and the lake shores. Finally it occurred to Beth that he might have gone to join Rob and me, so they sent the messenger to investigate.

"He must be lost in the woods somewhere," said Beth tearfully, "and he will starve to death."

Rob actually touched her hand in his distress at her grief.

"Ptolemy is too smart to get lost anywhere," I declared. "He knows fully as much about woodcraft as he does about every other kind of craft. He's one of his mother's antiquities personified. But haven't you been able to find anyone who saw him after you went for your ride?"

"No; even the hotel help were all out on the lake."

"And he left Diogenes here, absolutely unguarded?"

"Well!" admitted Silvia, "he tied Diogenes to a tree near the sandpile."

"Then he must have gone away with malice aforethought," I said, "and Diogenes is the only one who knows anything about his last movements."

I lifted the child to my knee, and speaking more gently to him than I had ever done, I asked:

"Di, did you and Tolly play in the sandpile yesterday?"

He was quite emphatic in his affirmative.

"Well, tell Ocean: Did Tolly go away and leave you?"

"Tolly goed away," he confirmed.

"Oh, Lucien!" protested Beth, laughing. "He's too little to know what you are talking about or to remember."

"Lucien's ruling passion strong in death," murmured Rob. "He can't help cross-examining the cradle even!"

"Which way," I resumed, ignoring these interruptions, "did Tolly go--that way?" pointing towards the woods.

"No! Tolly goed--" and he trailed off into his baby jargon which no one could understand, but he pointed to the lake.

"What did he say when he went away; when he tied the rope around you?"

"Bye-bye."

"What else?"

Diogenes' intentions to be communicative were certainly all right, but not a word was intelligible. As he kept picking at his dress and pointing to it, I finally prompted:

"Did Tolly pin a paper to Di's dress?"

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